You are of the persuasion that Jesus was deserted by his disciples. Do you believe that is “literally” true? Does that mean you are “literally” selective of the Bible as you accuse the fundamentalists of being? My feeling is this: no matter what we do or accomplish in the “physical” realm ultimately we will make that final journey alone. Regardless of the number of people who are “present” or have taken up “our” cause, we face death one on one.
P.S. I hold your work and world view in very high regard. Thanks very much for that and all that you have done for me and those like me.
Dear George,
It is not quite as you seem to imagine. I don’t treat anything in the Bible as literally true, for most of it is interpretive material not the work of eyewitnesses. This is especially true of the gospels that are written 40-70 years after the crucifixion and in Greek, a language that none of his disciples spoke. That hardly makes for a literal text.
Not to be literal, however, does not mean that the substance of the text is not true. The first gospel, Mark, is quite clear that when Jesus was arrested, all of the disciples forsook him and fled (see Mark 14:50). The later gospels temper that in various ways to whitewash this apostolic abandonment. Mark even has Jesus quote Zechariah (Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered) to justify their abandonment. One does not do that unless the abandonment was real.
By the time the gospels were written, the disciples were heroes. Yet the fact of their abandonment was so deep in Christian memory that it could not be omitted, so it was explained and justified as the fulfillment of scripture. Those are the things that have convinced me that the abandonment of Jesus by the disciples is a fact of history.
I hope this clarifies your question. Thanks for writing.
John Shelby Spong
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